Ordinary plain old blog PLUS frequent reflections on "1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die" by Tom Moon (of NPR and other fames)

After I dumped my bags at the hotel I caught a tram toward the Melbourne Botanical Garden to join an Aboriginal Heritage Walk. The world was unreal in its dewiness, because the morning was misplaced in my mind, jammed in askew where dusk should be. After I got off the tram (where I had been utterly mystified by the ticket machine, and probably bought a ticket to Alpha Centauri that would be good until I drew social security), I walked up past the ANZAC memorial. Next to the enormous stone edifice -- blocks of which weep just enough rust to hint at bloody losses in many wars -- I saw my first magpie lark.

I thought at first the memorial was the garden's visitor center (seemed a little intense, but what did I know). I walked in, and saw immediately a case of campaign ribbons and war medals stretching into dimness. Friends told me that Australians feel strongly they "do their bit" in wars and adversity. The evidence certainly was there, and their sense of loss and duty interested me. Certainly Central Park would not have such a dominant memorial, nor Philly. It reminded me in that way of the South where I grew up, where bloody conflict is worked into the cobblestones and soldiery is more integral to stories and public architecture.

The first bird I saw when I got in a cab in Melbourne was a magpie. Several magpies gathered at the top of a radio tower. About the size of a small crow in the U.S., magpies in Australia have a widely variable, sweet swooping coo that sounds like a pigeon with a megaphone and a vocoder. It sounded so bright and light and intense.

They were the second bird to call in the woods in the mornings in the Dandenongs. You couldn't see them then, in the dusky morning. They made a crooning, cool, chuckling sound, keeping in touch as they began to work the woods for any food left out overnight.

Scott McCloudProbably the best-known thinker about comic strips/books/graphic novels/sequential art working right now. Controversial among comic fans but unequivocally an influential and original thinker.